DESCRIPTION

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is used to edit
and manipulate images. It can load and save a variety of image formats
and can be used to convert between formats.

GIMP can also be used as a paint program. It features a set of drawing
and painting tools such as airbrush, clone, pencil, and paint
brush. Painting and drawing tools can be applied to an image with a
variety of paint modes. It also offers an extensive array of
selection tools like rectangle, ellipse, fuzzy select, bezier select,
intelligent scissors, and select by color.

GIMP offers a variety of plug-ins that perform a variety of image
manipulations. Examples include bumpmap, edge detect, gaussian blur,
and many others. In addition, GIMP has several scripting extension
which allow for advanced non-interactive processing and creation of
images.

GIMP ships with a second binary called gimp-console. This binary
is a console-only version and behaves as if gimp was called with
the --no-interface command-line option.

On platforms with the D-Bus message bus system, GIMP will by default check
if an instance is already running in this user session. If it detects that,
it will pass all filenames given on the command-line to the already running
GIMP instance and quit.

OPTIONS

GIMP accepts the following options:

-h, --help

Show GIMP command-line options.

--help-all

Show all command-line options.

--help-gtk

Show GTK+ command-line options.

--help-gegl

Show GEGL command-line options.

-v, --version

Output version information and exit. When combined with the --verbose
option, version information about libraries used by GIMP is shown as well.

--license

Output license information and exit.

--verbose

Be verbose and create information on standard output.

-n, --new-instance

Do not attempt to reuse an already running GIMP instance. Always start a
new one.

-a, --as-new

Open filenames passed on the command-line as new images, don't set the
filename on them.

-i, --no-interface

Run without a user interface.

-d, --no-data

Do not load patterns, gradients, palettes, or brushes. Often useful
in non-interactive situations where startup time is to be minimized.

-f, --no-fonts

Do not load any fonts. No text functionality will be available if this
option is used.

--display display

Use the designated X display.

-s, --no-splash

Do not show the splash screen.

--no-shm

Do not use shared memory between GIMP and its plug-ins.
Instead of using shared memory, GIMP will send the data via pipe. This
will result in slower performance than using shared memory.

--no-cpu-accel

Do not use CPU accelerations such as MMX or SSE even if GIMP detects
that your CPU provides this functionality.

--session <name>

Use a different sessionrc for this GIMP session. The given session
name is appended to the default sessionrc filename.

-g, --gimprc <gimprc>

Use an alternative gimprc instead of the default one. Useful in
cases where plug-in paths or machine specs may be different.

--system-gimprc <gimprc>

Use an alternate system gimprc file.

--dump-gimprc

Output a gimprc file with default settings.

--debug-handlers

Enable debugging signal handlers.

-c, --console-messages

Do not popup dialog boxes on errors or warnings. Print the messages on
the console instead.

--stack-trace-mode {never|query|always}

If a stack-trace should be generated in case of fatal signals.

--pdb-compat-mode {off|on|warn}

If the PDB should provide aliases for deprecated functions.

--batch-interpreter <procedure>

Specifies the procedure to use to process batch events. The default is
to let Script-Fu evaluate the commands.

-b, --batch <command>

Execute <command> non-interactively. This option may appear
multiple times. The <command> is passed to the batch
interpreter. When <command> is - the commands are read
from standard input.

ENVIRONMENT

GIMP respects a number of environment variables.

DISPLAY

to get the default host and display number.

GIMP2_DIRECTORY

to get the name of the personal GIMP directory. If unset .gimp-2.6 is
used. If this is an absolute path, it is used as is. If it is a
relative path, it is taken to be a subdirectory of the home directory.

GIMP2_DATADIR

to get the base location for data files such as brushes and patterns.
If unset ${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0 is used.

GIMP2_LOCALEDIR

to get the base location for translations. If unset ${datarootdir}/locale
is used.

GIMP2_PLUGINDIR

to get the base location for plug-ins and modules. If unset
${exec_prefix}/lib/gimp/2.0 is used.

GIMP2_SYSCONFDIR

to get the location of configuration files. If unset /etc/gimp/2.0
is used.

On Linux GIMP can be compiled with support for binary relocatibility.
This will cause data, plug-ins and configuration files to be searched
relative to the location of the gimp executable file unless overridden
by the environment variables mentioned above.

FILES

GIMP's data files are stored in ${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0, where ${datarootdir}
is set on install, but is typically /usr/share. GIMP's system-wide
configuration files are stored in /etc/gimp/2.0, where ${prefix}
is typically /usr.

Most GIMP configuration is read in from the user's init file,
$HOME/.gimp-2.6/gimprc. The system wide equivalent is in
/etc/gimprc. The system wide file is parsed
first and the user gimprc can override the system settings.
/etc/gimprc_user is the default gimprc
placed in users' home directories the first time GIMP is run.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/devicerc - holds settings for input devices
together with the tool, colors, brush, pattern and gradient
associated to that device.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/gtkrc - users set of GIMP-specific GTK+ config
settings. Options such as widget color and fonts sizes can be set
here.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/parasiterc - Stores all persistent GIMP
parasites. This file will be rewritten every time you quit GIMP.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/sessionrc - This file takes session-specific
info (that is info, you want to keep between two GIMP sessions). You
are not supposed to edit it manually, but of course you can do. This
file will be entirely rewritten every time you quit GIMP. If this
file isn't found, defaults are used.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/templaterc - Image templates are kept in this
file. New images can conveniently created from these templates. If
this file isn't found, defaults are used.

/etc/gimp/2.0/unitrc - default user unit database. It contains the
unit definitions for centimeters, meters, feet, yards, typographic
points and typographic picas and is placed in users home directories
the first time GIMP is ran. If this file isn't found, defaults are
used.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/unitrc - This file contains your user unit
database. You can modify this list with the unit editor. You are not
supposed to edit it manually, but of course you can do. This file
will be entirely rewritten every time you quit GIMP.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/plug-ins - location of user installed plug-ins.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/pluginrc - plug-in initialization values are
stored here. This file is parsed on startup and regenerated if need
be.

${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0/scripts - system wide directory of scripts
used in Script-Fu and other scripting extensions.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/scripts - user created and installed scripts.

${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0/gflares - system wide directory used by the gflare
plug-in.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/gflares - user created and installed gflare
files.

${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0/gfig - system wide directory used by the gfig plug-in.

$HOME/.gimp-2.6/gfig - user created and installed gfig files.

${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0/images/gimp-splash.png - the default image used for the
GIMP splash screen.

${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0/images/gimp-logo.png - image used in the GIMP about
dialog.

${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0/tips/gimp-tips.xml - tips as displayed in the "Tip of
the Day" dialog box.

SPLASH IMAGES

GIMP comes with a default image for the splash screen but it allows
system administrators and users to customize the splash screen by
providing other images. The image to be used with the splash screen is
chosen as follows:

1.

GIMP tries to load a random splash screen from the directory
$HOME/.gimp-2.6/splashes.

2.

It then falls back to using $HOME/.gimp-2.6/gimp-splash.png.

3.

If the user didn't install any custom splash images, a random image is
picked from ${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0/splashes.

4.

As a last resort, GIMP uses the default splash image located at
${datarootdir}/gimp/2.0/images/gimp-splash.png.

SUGGESTIONS AND BUG REPORTS

Any bugs found should be reported to the online bug-tracking system
available on the web at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/. Before reporting
bugs, please check to see if the bug has already been reported.

When reporting GIMP bugs, it is important to include a reliable way to
reproduce the bug, version number of GIMP (and probably GTK+), OS name
and version, and any relevant hardware specs. If a bug is causing a
crash, it is very useful if a stack trace can be provided. And of
course, patches to rectify the bug are even better.

OTHER INFO

The canonical place to find GIMP info is at http://www.gimp.org/.
Here you can find links to just about many other GIMP sites,
tutorials, data sets, mailing list archives, and more.

There is also a GIMP User Manual available at http://docs.gimp.org/
that goes into much more detail about the interactive use of GIMP.

The latest version of GIMP and the GTK+ libs is always available at
ftp://ftp.gimp.org/.

AUTHORS

Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis and the GIMP Development Team.

With patches, fixes, plug-ins, extensions, scripts, translations,
documentation and more from lots and lots of people all over the
world.